


Easy

by Huggle



Category: Peacemakers (2003)
Genre: Caretaking, Gen, Guilty Jared Stone, Hurt Larimer Finch, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27070915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huggle/pseuds/Huggle
Summary: It’s only been a few short weeks since Stone hired Finch and they’re both finding it a little hard to adjust.Maybe, Stone figures, he should have realised that Finch had most of the adjusting to do.  Maybe, if he had, they wouldn’t be where they are now.
Relationships: Larimer Finch & Jared Stone
Kudos: 5





	Easy

**Author's Note:**

> I still miss this show.

Stone figures he’s like most people, in that he doesn’t like being wrong. It’s natural; being wrong makes you feel like you’re dumb, especially if it’s over something big, especially if it involves pride or just plain old fashioned pigheadedness.

He likes to think, though, that when he realises he is wrong, he admits it, which is why when he adjusts his initial take on Finch he offers the guy a job.

He’s too damn good, in more ways than one, to go back to the Pinkertons and get sent to break a strike and face the repercussions of refusing to use the violence he expects would be demanded of him.

But it still takes him a while to get used to the younger man, and it doesn’t help that Finch seems to take a while to getting used to _them_.

To the town, to the people that live there. To the way they do things, so different Stone knows from the big city with proper sidewalks and opera halls and a lawyer or a doctor or a dentist setting up shop on every corner.

To him, as well.

Later, when he’s watching Finch sleep, he figures he’s been more than a little unfair. He just has to get used to Finch; Finch has to get used to living in a new place, among strangers, not having access to the same resources he would have living in Chicago in the employ of a connected detective agency, and working under somebody probably a little rougher round the edges than his previous superior.

He could be a little more patient, understanding, _supportive_ as Katie tells him.

She doesn’t say if he was then Finch wouldn’t be sleeping off a sedative after getting his arm set by the doctor, but she doesn’t have to.

Stone’s already told himself that, because it’s true. Just like it’s true Finch obviously felt he had to prove himself, and that he couldn’t be honest with Stone about being hurt after drunk ol’ Elijah threw him halfway across the saloon, for fear of what Stone might think of him.

After all, he reckons, Finch didn’t take the job Stone offered him out of choice. 

Why would he? 

He took it because it was the only alternative to being made to take an axe handle to the back of some poor bastard trying to feed his family.

And it’s not like Stone’s been all that welcoming to him. He should have done more than just gave him a job and pointed him to the rooming house.

Instead, he’s left Finch thinking that he’s still on probation, and even for someone as confident as Finch, it’s led them where they are now.

Finch stirs, shifts uneasily in his sleep.

Stone goes over, presses the back of his hand to Finch’s forehead, but it’s cool enough. He tugs the blanket up over him.

“Easy, Finch,” he says, quietly. “It’s alright. It’s alright.”

He watches the distress ease from Finch’s face and body, and then pulls the chair he’s been sitting in closer.

In the morning, he and Finch are going to have a talk.

And it’s going to be different from here on in.


End file.
